I would have preferred to wait a few days (at least) before making comments about a presidency which has not happened yet. But the world spins, the media bombards us, people react, and readers ask questions. And so I’ll try to put into words the mood you can sense on this day after. A day after so few expected what happened, and that more than we thought had hoped for. Secretly.

I wrote the other day – and I reiterate it since I was cordially rebuked by some – that the ridiculous inaccuracy in the polls didn’t happen because of some wrong application of statistical-mathematical criteria. It occurred because people voted for Trump who were ashamed to admit it before the election. Trust me. I do not need to go beyond family and friends to see it. Why? Why should somebody feel ashamed for voting this way? Because the masters of communication, of thought, of “culture,” the world of those who claim to control how we are supposed to think had never hammered us this hard insisting on the one and only thing a normal human being would do: vote for Hillary Clinton. The others? Sexists, racists, exploiters, violent, etc. I’ve been repeating for a year that “the great damage” of the Obama Administration has been raising the ideological bar, and the subsequent triumph of the intolerance of the tolerant. The liberals’ “free thinking,” adopted by Democrats, has built a more harmful wall than the possible wall on the Mexican border. This “free thinking” has torn the country in two. On the one side you have them, the good ones, those who tolerate everything except those who do not think like them. These are the so-called “non-violent” ones who united only against “the enemy,” aka, the others. It reminds me of protests in Italy back in the 70s: “United, yes, but against DC” (united against the Christian Democratic party). Without an enemy there’s nothing. On the other side (unfortunately not the better side), the so-called “conservatives” dug in behind those few values which they think they still believe in. Values which have become barren, incapable of generating life. The wall’s already there, and it crosses America’s belly. This is the scenario in which Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders made their appearance – so different yet so similar to each other. Trump offers a revival of the old American dream, while it appears that Sanders offers a burial ceremony for the old dream and proposes a new one with an injection of the welfare state, in the “give me a prairie and a horse to ride through it” style.

Outside and against the logic of both parties, Sanders and Trump gave birth to two movements fixing their gaze on the true theme – only inchoately understood – of these elections: the American Dream. We shall see if this adolescent country can grow into a man and see its dream mature or if we are headed toward premature aging.

No one in the Republican fold was able to gag Trump. They were unable to stop him from knocking down the other 16 contenders like bowling pins. The Democratic party, those advocating the intolerance of the tolerant, little by little managed to grind Sanders down because Sanders was an anomaly, his followers an unplanned “minority,” an unexpected “diversity,” and therefore something “intolerable.” By eliminating Sanders, the Democratic party lost its only trace of the ideal that gave it a little shine, a little attractiveness. This is how this “progressive world” has found itself suddenly and unexpectedly naked and tramped upon.

Sixteen years ago at Rockefeller Center, as I was following in shock as the contest between Bush and Gore unfolded, I was wondering how could it be possible we still had so many Republicans in the US, considering that this world keeps inexorably marching towards “progress.”

Today America finds herself with Trump as the President, a Congress in the Republicans’ hands, and soon enough a “conservative majority” within the Supreme Court. This is what Americans have decided. And today the “tolerant” are already waging their campaign of intolerance against Trump, in the media and on the streets of our cities.

Trump saluted America and Hillary with balanced and kind words. Hillary in her defeat showed us she too has a human face. All call for unity, all call for common work for the good of our country. But this will be hard after we have been digging such a deep dividing line for so long.

In all honesty, if I look at what’s in the air today right after the elections, I see an ideological wall, but also some small opportunities to work together to start building society. These are the first signals I can perceive.

I am still afraid that Trump is the wrong answer to real issues but I believe – I hope! – that we will have more chances to fight for what we believe in than we would have had with Hillary and her establishment support. I believe and I hope we may find room to fight and rebuke the most inhuman forces that Trump’s campaign has launched.

With Hillary and the army of the tolerant there would have been no way out. We are only at the beginning. We will see.

And may God help us, that is, God Bless America!